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Four Years of Pisco Trail

New Year’s Day is always special to me because I get to celebrate Pisco Trail’s birthday, and today I can’t believe that Pisco Trail is four years old. The end of 2014 marked four years of doing many of the things I love: pop-ups, dinners, classes, recipes, cocktails, research, writing, and travels. All of which have provided me with inspiration to continue to share my passion for Peruvian food and culture with the world in 2015.

In 2014 one of my culinary heroes, my grandmother, passed away, and to honor her love for cocktails and the history of the Pisco Sour, I dedicated this Peruvian Whiskey Sour to her. Inspired by a documentary on Peruvian desserts, I played around with a traditional Peruvian drink and made some Chicha Morada jello shots that had enough magic in them to make me feel like a child again, if only for a moment. Throughout the year, I always enjoyed surprising the audience at Omnivore Books with Pisco cocktails. As always, cooking dinner or teaching a class at 18 Reasons fills me with profound joy and gratitude. I also had the pleasure of interviewing a friend who is campaigning to make the Pisco Punch the official cocktail of San Francisco. Si se puede!

During the Summer, I had the opportunity to make some progress on a very personal project — a collection of short stories about my Mom, and the food she ate and cooked growing up in Lima. In the Fall, I made my annual pilgrimage to Peru and explored new restaurants, including the No. 1 in Latin America, Central. Intrigued by the Peruvian restaurant boom in London, I also travelled to London to find out why Peruvian food is suddenly so popular there. I am still processing all that I learned during those recent trips, but you can look forward to posts on Pisco Trail soon with more on my travels to Lima and London. While you wait, you can make this Peruvian Vesper Martini which combines Pisco and Gin, cheers!

Now that 2015 has started, I’ll be in the Pisco Lab working on new macerados, and new cocktails that may or may have not been inspired by my fascination with the cocktail scene in London. There are even rumors that some molecular gastronomy techniques and / or smoke may be used in future recipes. But if you want some immediate gratification, then get yourself a ticket for my first literary inspired and Valentine’s Day themed event of 2015 at 18 Reasons: